Deliberative democracy

Deliberative democracy is a type of political system in which contemplation is essential to decision-making. Deliberative democracy combines both majority rule and consensus decision-making. Deliberative democracy differs from traditional political ideology in that real deliberation, rather than mere voting, is the predominant basis of legislation. Deliberative democracy can coexist with both direct democracy and representative democracy.
Among the many characteristics of deliberate democracy are that it is structured in the sense that the points presented are backed by fair and relevant, credible empirical statements. It is also balanced in that, the arguments that it presents are met by the contrary arguments. It is also conscientious in that those participants who are included are all willing to talk and listen with respect and civility. This form of democracy is substantive in that the arguments that it brings out are all considered to be sincerely on their merit and not by the way they are made or who makes them. This form of democracy is also comprehensive in that all the points it present are held by significant portions and they are all given attention.

This form of democracy happens to have various problems whereby the rules that it uses in deliberation and those that deliberate the theorists interfere with rather than them facilitating good practical reasoning. The second challenge is that this form of democracy happens to be ideologically biased for liberalism as well as the Republican over the parliamentary democratic systems as substantiated by Elster, (1998).



Question three

Democracy happens to have been defined in various ways though most of the definitions fit in either one of the four major types which are inclusive of; economic, communitarian, social or political democracy. In most cases economic, social and communitarian democracy happens to be defined by wealth equalization, income, status or even the creation and maintenance of a certain feeling of belonging in the community. Political democracy happens to be different from all these for it does not promise equality in the economy, social justice and in most cases it is defined by its procedures rather than its outcome.

The above definition shows the differences forms of concept that democracy can make use. Any form of democracy is said to be thin if the concepts that it is applying are uni-dimensional. The concepts that are uni-dimensional happen to components varying together. On the other hand, democracy is said to be thick if it applies concepts which are multidimensional in that the components which are used in its formulation vary differently from each other. Thicker version of democracy happens to possess more than two dimensions some of them including contestation and inclusiveness. This means that in thin democracy less than two of the dimensions are incorporated.

Question four

Illiberal democracy

According to Zakaria, (1997), an illiberal democracy is also known as a low-intensity democracy, or a hybrid regime is a form of a governing system through which despite that election happens to take place, the citizens from those areas are cut off from knowledge about certain activities of those tend to exercise the real power due to the lack of civil liberties. This form of democracy happens to form a society that is not open. This form of democracy categorizes those countries which are neither free nor under a dictatorship as they fall somewhere between those regimes which are democratic and those which are not. There may be a constitution which limits the government powers, but those who are in power happens to ignore it liberties or because a legal, constitutional framework which is adequate of liberties do not exist as substantiated by Caramani, (2011) .

Illiberal democracies happen to be the democratically elected regimes which are in many cases re-elected, or they are reinforced by referendums that tend to ignore the limits by the constitutions of their power hence ending up to deprive their citizens of the basic liberties and rights. Illiberal democracies happen to be rising in many countries since many leaders are being led greed to power. Most of them do not want to step down after their turn is over.



Question five

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism happens to be a form of government that is characterized by the central powers that happen to be strong and those political freedoms that are limited. All the individual regimes happen to be subordinate to the state, and constitutional accountability happens not to be there under the authoritarian regime. In this type of regime, it happens that there is limited political pluralism, legitimacy is mainly based on emotions, there is minimal social mobilization which is mostly caused by constraints on the public such as the suppression of political opponents and also the anti-regime activities. The last one is that this regime has informally defined executive power within powers which are considered to be vague or shifting.

An authoritarian regime can be popular reason being: these regimes do benefit people due to them relying on complex networks of support and these supporters happen to be rewarded by this regime. People also may tend to believe that other alternatives of this regime may be worse than it. This is because much of the democracy that is being currently experienced is in most cases followed by massive instability which often result to civil war. Also, this form of the regime is capable of manufacturing support which can be done via propaganda and can suppress the opposition in the fairly obvious ways.



List of references

Caramani, D., 2011. Comparative politics. Oxford University Press.

Levitsky, S. and Way, L., 2002. The rise of competitive authoritarianism. Journal of democracy, 13(2), pp.51-65.

Zakaria, F., 1997. The rise of illiberal democracy. Foreign affairs, pp.22-43.

Elster, J., 1998. Deliberative democracy (Vol. 1). Cambridge University Press.